The aminoglycoside antibiotics are a valuable therapeutic class of antibiotics which include the kanamycins, gentamicins, streptomycins and the more recently discovered fortimicins. While the naturally produced parent antibiotics are, in themselves, valuable entities, chemical modifications have been found to improve the activity, either intrinsic or activity against resistant strains, or reduce the toxicity of the parent antibiotics. And, because of the development of aminoglycoside resistant strains and inactivation of the parent antibiotics by R- mediated factors which can develop, the search for new entities continues.
One such entity has been discovered in the fortimicin family of antibiotics, 3-O-demethylfortimicin A. The corresponding 3-O-demethylfortimicin B is also of interest. The 3-O-demethylfortimicins are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,756, issued Nov. 7, 1978.
Previously known methods for producing 3-O-demethylfortimicin A and 3-O-demethylfortimicin B have resulted in such low yields that production of these antibiotics was extremely slow and inefficient, and there has been a need for methods which produce the 3-O-demethylfortimicins in greater yield. The present invention provides one such method.